Symbiosis
by onlystarchild
Summary: It isn’t that Michelangelo can’t function without his brothers . . . except for how he totally can’t. Mikey POV drabble


Author's Notes: This takes place immediately after the 2007 TMNT movie, Mikey-centric POV. Kinda a long-ish character drabble?

Feedback: Critique encouraged! Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly . . . however; flames will be distributed amongst my English teacher friends for the general amusement of all.

* * *

Michelangelo is bored.

Bored out of his shell.

This usually does not bode well for his brothers, as a bored Mikey generally equates to a bothersome, pesky, trouble-making Mikey. But Mikey isn't feeling particularly troublesome at the moment as he noisily pads around the lair and sings to himself while searching for some amusement.

The noise is a comfort.

When Leo left on his leadership-Mecca, he took the noise with him. Which is funny to think about, actually, because Mikey's oldest brother is nothing if not quiet in everything he does – it's like Leo is stuck on permanent stealth mode. But still, when he left, their home got quieter and quieter as they all stopped talking and hanging out and . . . everything. Donny cloistered himself in the lab, Raph went into vampire-mode, Master Splinter sadly gazed at them all over his tea, and Mikey was left alone, alone with The Quiet.

And it isn't that Michelangelo can't function without his brothers . . . except for how he totally can't.

He thinks he finally figured out what went wrong with the whole plan of trying to stabilize their family by sending Leo off. It all comes down to symbiosis.

Kinda like the whales on the Animal Planet channel that have those other creatures attached to their underbellies which clean them.

Not that being a turtle is remotely similar to being a whale (and Mikey has had a lot of time to ponder this in between Cowabunga Carl gigs) or a . . . whatever those whale-symbiots are – but it's the function that's important.

The function is the necessary give and take which keeps both organisms alive – alive and . . . _alive._

There is definite difference between the two – just like there is a difference between quiet and The Quiet.

When Leo left, Mikey did his best to fill up the quietness with loud video games, rude jokes, and the near-constant pestering of his remaining siblings, but The Quiet bleed into their lives through the Leo-shaped hole.

It was like one of those kiddie puzzles that Master Splinter had salvaged for them when they were little: only five or six pieces to click into place and the picture of a baby animal or a truck was revealed. When one piece of a puzzle was inevitably lost – Raph had eaten at least one, though Mikey was to blame for misplacing the others – the game was ruined because such a large chunk of the picture was missing. After all, there were only a few pieces to start with.

Three pieces could not complete a four-piece puzzle. It remained incomplete.

Then one day Leo was just standing there when Mikey opened his eyes, hand on Donnie's shoulder and smiling like he'd always been standing right there and – oh god – Mikey could almost hear the click in his mind as his big brother single-handedly filled the hole in their lives . . . or maybe that was just Leo's heartbeat as Mikey pressed his head to his brother's chest and clutched him.

Yup, that is definitely the difference between being alive and _alive._ The difference between quiet and The Quiet.

Michelangelo is still bored as he completes his circuit of the quiet lair – Leo meditating in the dojo and pointedly ignoring him, Raph passed out in his hammock, Donnie's face whitewashed by the light of his computer, Master Splinter secluded in his own room.

There is not much noise as he throws himself on the battered couch, just the dull hum of electronics and the faint hiss of the distant L line train whistling by miles away.

It's quiet, but ok, because the pieces are all there. He listens closer and can hear them all: Donny typing away in his lab, Raphael's snores faintly echoing down from upstairs, Leo done meditating and moving through the practiced rhythm of a kata in the dojo, and Master Splinter setting the tea kettle on the stove.

Mikey smiles and forgets his boredom, listening to the subtle flow of life around him, the cadence of his family.


End file.
